Multimedia streaming—the continuous delivery of synchronized media data like video, audio, text, and animation—is a critical link in the digital multimedia revolution. Today, streaming media is primarily about video and audio, but a richer, broader digital media era is emerging with a profound and growing impact on the Internet and digital broadcasting.
Synchronized media means multiple media objects that share a common timeline. Video and audio are examples of synchronized media—each is a separate data stream with its own data structure, but the two data streams are played back in synchronization with each other. Virtually any media type can have a timeline. For example, an image object can change like an animated .gif file, text can change and move, and animation and digital effects happen over time. This concept of synchronizing multiple media types is gaining greater meaning and currency with the emergence of more sophisticated media composition frameworks implied by MPEG-4, Dynamic HTML, and other media playback environments.
The term “streaming” is used to indicate that the data representing the various media types is provided over a network to a client computer on a real-time, as-needed basis, rather than being pre-delivered in its entirety before playback. Thus, the client computer renders streaming data as it is received from a network server, rather than waiting for an entire “file” to be delivered.
The widespread availability of streaming multimedia enables a variety of informational content that was not previously available over the Internet or other computer networks. Live content is one significant example of such content. Using streaming multimedia, audio, video, or audio/visual coverage of noteworthy events can be broadcast over the Internet as the events unfold. Similarly, television and radio stations can transmit their live content over the Internet.
Although streaming multimedia content compares favorably with more traditional paper-based content in most regards, one disadvantage is that it requires significant time for viewing. It cannot be “skimmed” like paper-based content. Thus, information consumers are forced to choose between the efficiency of the written word and the richness of the multimedia experience.
The invention described below addresses this disadvantage of prior art streaming multimedia content, allowing more efficient multimedia perusal of streaming multimedia presentations than has previously been possible.